INDIANAPOLIS — James Franklin was emotional in the postgame locker room. He felt the pain of his Penn State team that fell 45-37 against No. 1 Oregon in the Big Ten Championship on Saturday. It was close. There were opportunities to win. Mistakes were made. But his ultimate message didn’t center on the disappointment over another big-game defeat.
Instead, it was a plea to remain hopeful. That the season has only begun. And it has. The College Football Playoff selection show will air at noon on Sunday, and the Nittany Lions will almost certainly host a first-round game. It’s just a matter of where they’re seeded and who they’ll play that is most uncertain.
The No. 5 seed, where the team was projected before facing the Ducks, would likely be the most favorable position. But with Georgia’s win over Texas in the SEC Championship, uncertainty over seeding criteria for conference-championship participants and otherwise and a head-to-head defeat to Ohio State, No. 6, 7 and 8 are also in play.
“Do I think our resume matches up with anybody in the country? Yeah, I think it does,” Franklin said. “Again, we lost by one possession to the No. 1 team in the country. And I think earlier in the season we lost to the No. 3 team in the country at the time. … So I don’t think there’s anybody in the country that’s got that type of resume in the Big Ten, arguably the best conference in all of college football.”
Franklin has been through tough losses before. But for the first time in his coaching career, a second loss will not define his team’s postseason fate. And as Penn State walked off the field, disappointed as confetti rained from the roof of Lucas Oil Stadium, linebacker Kobe King made sure to remind his teammates of this. That everything is still ahead of them.
The loss to the Buckeyes was difficult. And for good reason: It was the Nittany Lions’ eighth consecutive defeat to the conference foe from Columbus, Ohio. But there was a silver lining. They grew from the adversity of that defeat. They’re “tremendously better,” King said. Now, it’s time to improve again in the face of a setback. And if they don’t, it’s season over.
“It’s like looking in the mirror, almost. The good, the bad, the adversity that hits when no one wants it to,” King said. “We just gotta analyze it, understand what it is and learn from it. Correct it, really. Learned something from Ohio State, learned something from Oregon today. So, you just gotta learn from mistakes, the good and the bad, and get better.”
What were the mistakes Penn State made in its narrow defeat on Saturday and what did we learn about this team entering the playoffs?
DEFENSE COULDN’T KEEP UP
A.J. Harris said the defense hadn’t seen the Ducks’ tempo offense “that much” throughout its week of preparation. So, when Oregon came out in no-huddle packages on their first drive, Harris and the Nittany Lions were caught off guard. The Ducks found the end zone on their first three possessions. Penn State allowed them to score more points than any opponent in eight years.
The culprit of this speedy, explosive Oregon offense? Wide receiver Tez Johnson, who caught 11 receptions for 181 yards and a touchdown and is, coincidentally, the adopted son of Harris’ high school coach, Patrick Nix. Harris said Johnson “definitely gave us a fit today.” And that was evident by the pace he set for the Ducks’ offense.
“It was the tempo. I feel like we need to do a better job at being urgent when they went tempo in the first quarter,” Harris said. “They did run a new type of offense that we didn’t see until they got into their base offense.”
OFFICIATING
Where to begin? There was the clear catch by Omari Evans ruled incomplete. There was the “fair catch” by Zion Tracy that pretty clearly wasn’t. There was the uncalled unnecessary roughness that involved Drew Allar and an Oregon defender. There were numerous uncalled holds and a few uncalled pass interferences.
Franklin particularly had an issue with Evans’ “incomplete” catch. He said, at the very least, they “should have buzzed down and checked that.” Penn State still scored on that drive, but the call was so questionable, it epitomized what was just a tumultuous night for the officiating crew.
“I could be wrong, but there wasn’t one holding call in the game. That will be interesting to watch,” Franklin said. “And I don’t want this to come off the wrong way: I give Oregon a ton of credit, but the penalties were pretty lopsided. And I have more of an issue with the ones that could have been reviewed. The non-reviewable ones, they’re going to happen. But the ones that need to be reviewed, need to be reviewed, in my opinion.”
THE FINAL PLAY
With two minutes remaining and just over 50 yards and a two-point conversion away from a tie game, Allar launched a costly deep pass toward wide receiver Harrison Wallace III, which was intercepted and all but ended the game. It appeared a major mistake by Allar, but Wallace was always the primary receiver. That’s just how the play was drawn up.
“The primary was Trey, trying to get the ball down the field,” Allar said. “I saw (the strong safety) hold and not get any depth and tried to give Trey a chance. I’ve got to do a better job of him or nobody. I’ve just got to see the leverage with the DB and give him more of a back shoulder, around the body where it’s going to be him or nobody and move on in the progression. But that’s what I saw in that play.”
THE MISSED FIELD GOAL
Penn State was gaining momentum in its opening drive of the second half. With a touchdown, the Nittany Lions would tie the game. But on fourth-and-5, Franklin opted to send out kicker Ryan Barker for a 40-yard field goal. Barker missed, Oregon scored a touchdown on the next drive and the deficit was back to double-digits. Did Franklin consider going for it?
“If it would have been fourth-and-3, everything that we discussed ahead of time, we would have went for it,” Franklin said. “We talked about that on the headset in terms of sequencing, how to call it. But when it was fourth-and-5, I thought the field goal was the right approach to come out with points. Barker had been kicking really well all year long. You make that field goal, you’re in a much different situation moving forward with a chance to win the game.”
GOING FOR TWO
Kaytron Allen opened the fourth quarter with a rushing touchdown. All of a sudden, Penn State was down just a score with an entire quarter left to play. But instead of sending out Barker for an extra-point attempt, the Nittany Lions opted for a two-point try centered on tight end Tyler Warren that failed and left them with an eight-point disadvantage. Why?
“We spend a ton of time on the analytics. We were having a tough time stopping them. We knew we were going to have to score points, and we wanted to try to win the game in regulation,” Franklin said. “So going for two to give us the best chance to win in regulation we thought was the plan that we needed to take and the approach that we needed to take.”
EXPLOSIVE RUSHING
Here’s a bright spot to the loss. At just the right time, it appears the Allen and Nick Singleton of old have returned. On Saturday, they combined for 24 carries for 229 rushing yards, each eclipsing 100 yards. They also combined for seven receptions for 58 yards, 43 of which came from Singleton.
It was likely Penn State’s most complete performance on the ground this season.
“I feel like it helps,” Singleton said. “You want to be explosive against teams in the playoffs, really good defenses and really good offenses, so it’s important to be explosive. So we’ve got to continue doing it.”
